Gardening Through Your Golden Years

Gardening Through Your Golden Years is done in three parts, starting with interviews with senior gardeners. Next are gardening suggestions and advice. Third and last are essays by long time garden writers, minimum age of 65. Most of the gardeners interviewed have lovely, well-established gardens. All have had varied and interesting careers. It would have been nice if one or two gardeners with slightly more limited resources and smaller, but very nice, gardens had been included. We have a retired neighbor that fits this description and ensure we walk past her garden at least once a week in the summer just to enjoy watching it grow. It's really very motivating to those of us not quite so gifted with a green thumb. The how to section of the book includes ideas for both how to garden and how to do it easier and more safely. Excellent advice with suggestions that everyone can use to their advantage. The final section of essays is easy, pleasant reading. My favorite, The Orange Mailbox, by A. Carman Clark, is fun to read with some outstanding suggestions. Overall, a little book that is both entertaining and informative.

You may buy this book for a parent or aging friend, but first take the time to read it yourself. It's not a how-to book, because people who have been gardening for decades don't need to know how to garden. Instead, through personal stories that cover many long lifetimes of gardening experience, this little gem of a book captures the constancy with which gardens nurture us, helping us through the hardest times while providing moments of joy that stretch into lifetimes.